We were thrilled to share an update last fall that these chimps, who had previously been deemed ineligible for sanctuary retirement, would at last get their chance to experience sanctuary. Now, just a few short months and several road trips later, they’ve arrived.

It’s a historic moment, following years of effort by animal welfare groups, lawmakers, and supporters who tirelessly advocated for their retirement from their former research facility to sanctuary. The arrival of the final group signifies the beginning of a new chapter – one filled new experiences, social bonds, and a retirement designed just for them.

Chimp Haven worked closely with the Alamogordo team to prepare and transport the APF chimps over the past 11 weeks, and with the recent arrival of the final six, their journey was complete. These chimpanzees are among the oldest and most fragile Chimp Haven has ever welcomed, with many in their 50s and 60s. Transferring them was considered risky due to their age and health conditions, and extra care and considerable collaboration have gone into making the transition to sanctuary life.

In addition to tireless advocacy efforts, Chimp Haven relied on the incredible generosity of private supporters to fund an expansion to ensure the APF chimps could come home. The project, which recently broke ground, includes new indoor bedrooms and outdoor play yards which will allow the chimps to engage in natural behaviors like foraging, climbing and resting, essential to their well-being. Construction was made possible through more than $5.6 million in private support, including an incredible $4 million lead gift established in 2024 from Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation and generous support from Grace Charitable Foundation, the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS), and others.

We are, of course, beyond thrilled to have the Alamogordo chimps home, where they are settling in and, in some cases, already meeting new friends. Al and Kamaka were among the first chimps to make the journey from New Mexico to Louisiana in January. Since then, they’ve captured our hearts and have joined a new family, Tabu’s group.

As wild born chimps, Al and Kamaka would have been brought to the U.S. as babies, and to our knowledge, had not lived with female chimps since then. In Tabu’s group, they’ve met four ladies, including bold personalities in Roxanne and Wotoni. The boys have done wonderfully in their new family, and staff suspect Roxanne and Kamaka may be harboring a mild mutual crush as they’ve been seen grooming and playing frequently.

As the boys take their time learning to socialize with these two strong ladies, the rest of the group has provided reassurance, allowing their learning process to unfold smoothly. We can’t wait to see how their bonds continue to grow with their new groupmates.

As we watch the APF chimps get to know their new home, we can’t help but reflect on their incredible resilience. Again and again they remind us that it’s never too late to change, to have new experiences and adventures, and to make new friends. We’re honored to be able to provide them with a retirement of freedom and choice thanks to your support.

We look forward to sharing more about the APF chimps at Chimp Haven. In the meantime, we are so very grateful for everyone who made their journey possible.

Thank you for bringing them home.

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Soon, Chimp Haven will begin welcoming the remaining chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility who are finally getting their opportunity to retire to sanctuary.

And, this month, Chimp Haven retirees Julius and Jacob are celebrating milestone birthdays. At an incredible 65 years old, they’re not only the sanctuary’s oldest residents, but also hold the distinction of being the oldest living male chimps in the U.S.

It’s certainly shaping up to be a year of landmark moments, and I want to invite you to join us in celebrating one more: Chimp Haven’s 30th anniversary!

Chimp Haven was founded in 1995 with the vision of providing long-term retirement for chimpanzees formerly used in biomedical research. Since then, the sanctuary has been home to more than 500 chimpanzees, and with your support, has provided them with a wonderful sanctuary retirement designed just for them.

If you asked Chimp Haven’s founders, we bet they’d say they couldn’t have imagined that today, Chimp Haven would be the world’s largest chimpanzee sanctuary and home to hundreds of former research chimps who spend their days exploring the forest, napping in the sunshine with friends, and relishing in wild chimp behaviors.

In fact, we did ask them.

This year, we’ll be sharing their thoughts and memories from Chimp Haven’s earliest days, along with plenty of throwback moments, inspiring stories, historic photos, achievements, learnings, and of course, plenty of chimps and pant-hoots.

Below is a preview featuring several of Chimp Haven’s founders to help us kick off this celebratory year. We hope you’ll join us in the weeks and months to come as we commemorate the amazing achievements of the past 30 years and all the wonderful chimps who have called the sanctuary home.

From all of us at Chimp Haven, thank you for being part of Chimp Haven’s amazing past and joining us for its future. We’re so grateful for your support.

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Last week, Merlin’s small by mighty group of three, who came to us from a research facility in Texas earlier this year, were moved to a new living space. The “corral” is a big, open-top space with grass, open sky, and a huge, multi-level structure to climb and explore. 

To our knowledge, Merlin, Hilde, and Penny likely had never experienced this kind of living space before. Often, when chimps are unfamiliar with new terrain, they’re understandably hesitant. Open spaces can be intimidating, and some chimps stick close to walls or retreat to their bedrooms until they feel secure.

Merlin had different plans. While at first he and his girls were cautious, it didn’t take long for Merlin to climb all the way to the very top of the big structure! Once he’d scaled it, he gazed up at the sky and spent lots of time taking in the view, which offers a vantage point for all the neighboring groups at the sanctuary.

His buddy Hilde soon had her own special moment. As she stepped onto the grass, she quietly stretched her hand above her head as though expecting to feel an invisible barrier above her. When she realized there was nothing holding her back, she eagerly explored the rest of the corral. Not long after, she, too, climbed the structure (though not quite as high as Merlin).

Soon Merlin decided it was time to work his way down, which was a bit more tricky than going up (he’s a pioneer after all!). He took his time and wasn’t discouraged, and since then, he’s been spending lots of time enjoying his new view. 

We are so very grateful to have your support in providing Merlin, Hilde, and all the chimps at Chimp Haven with this wonderful life, full of friends, new experiences, and the very best care. They’ve earned it after all.  From all of us at Chimp Haven, thank you for making these special moments possible!

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You may recall previous updates about 23 chimpanzees who remained at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) in New Mexico. These chimps had previously been deemed ineligible to come to sanctuary due to their health statuses, but this week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they will have their opportunity to come to Chimp Haven! 

We have always strongly believed that sanctuary is the best place for retired chimpanzees to live out their lives and are thrilled these chimps will finally have their opportunity to come to Chimp Haven, where they’ll receive expert care and an incredible retirement designed just for them – they’ve earned it. 

As we celebrate this wonderful news, we’ve got work to do.  

The NIH shared that the primary reason for the decision to move the chimps is that a significant number of current APF staff plan to retire in 2025, and, due to challenges with recruitment of qualified caregivers, it is in the chimps’ best interest to transfer them to Chimp Haven. 

As we’ve shared in previous updates, Chimp Haven is close to capacity. While we are prepared to welcome the first new arrivals from APF in early 2025, we will need to build additional living spaces to transfer them all.  

With the timeline for APF staff retirement next summer, we must start building as soon as possible. Thankfully, Chimp Haven has been preparing for this possibility and has plans for the spaces we’ll need to build to accommodate these sweet chimps. The expansion will likely cost a minimum of $4 million, which Chimp Haven must raise from private supporters. 

There are many details to be determined in the weeks to come, but for now, we celebrate this wonderful news for the APF chimps. They are on their way to a well-deserved retirement at sanctuary, and we cannot wait to welcome them home. 

We look forward to keeping you posted on their journey. From all of us at Chimp Haven, thank you for your support. 

Interested in how you can support the chimps? Chimp Haven’s most important, continued need is daily chimp care. You can support the chimps’ daily care needs at sanctuary this holiday season through our online catalog.  

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Right now, they’re enjoying their first days of sunshine at the sanctuary, and we’re so excited to continue to get to know them and share their stories with you.

But as you know, with nearly 200 chimps still remaining in research facilities waiting to come to Chimp Haven, our work is not yet complete. With the sanctuary very close to capacity, we’re in the middle of a large-scale expansion to create additional habitats, bedrooms, and veterinary suites to support our growing chimp family.Despite many recent rainy Louisiana days, three new multi-acre habitats are beginning to take shape, and we love to think about all the chimps who will enjoy climbing, playing, and interacting in these spaces in the future.

Right now we’re especially excited about two 15,000-square-foot open-air corrals that will welcome chimps soon. These spaces will include green grass, growing trees, and multi-level structures for chimpanzees to explore, and will give Chimp Haven even more flexible spaces in which chimpanzee groups can live, play, and eat.

Both corrals include play structures and an overhead canopy shade to keep the chimps cool and comfy in warm weather. Corrals are expected to be completed this month and will welcome their first chimps sometime this spring.

In addition to chimp housing, construction continues on two new state-of-the-art veterinary suites, space to store and prep the chimps’ food, and much-needed staff areas where caregivers can share care info about chimps before they start their day, complete training, shower and change after a long day of work, and more.

Since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) ended biomedical research on chimpanzees in 2015, we’ve worked quickly to provide those chimps with a life at sanctuary – but there are still 200 in research facilities waiting their turn. Like you, we are dedicated to seeing the day when all former research chimpanzees get their chance to come to sanctuary. By expanding the Chimp Haven campus and making room for them, we’ll be taking a huge step toward making that dream a reality.

The Welcome Them Home expansion is a $20 million labor of love for the chimps, and we’re counting on generous supporters like you to help bring it to life so that, one day soon, every chimpanzee has their opportunity to retire to Chimp Haven.

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Recent events in our country have been difficult and traumatic for many, but also offer a glimmer of hope, promise, and change. As all of us look for ways to take action, we must also examine the way our professional communities and workplaces can better support diversity and minority colleagues in their fields.

The field of biomedical sciences has not lived up to its own standards of diversity and inclusion. The number of Black students enrolled in biomedical PhD programs in the U.S. has remained roughly flat, rising only from six percent to seven percent in the 2006 – 2016 period, and the number in postdoctoral fellowships is smaller still.

We have an enormous ethical obligation to stop doing “business as usual” and create a just, equitable and inclusive STEM field. I believe that must begin with a non-biased evaluation of educational disparities.

Ethnic and racial disparities in education follow a statistical pattern in which African-American, American Indian, Latino and Southeast Asian groups underperform academically relative to Caucasians and other Asian-Americans. These educational disparities are evident early in childhood and persist through K-12, and are also reflected in the student populations involved in gifted and talented programs and enrollment in higher education, such as STEM.

The organization of schools and the ways students are engaged in their learning are critically important for academic achievement across ethnic and racial groups. I am convinced that the answer for the future lies within us. We should advocate for wider access to high quality early childhood education programs, which have been shown to help redress disparities associated with poverty in early childhood.

As a black, female veterinarian I cannot overlook that I am one of less than ten percent of minorities in what has been coined the “whitest profession” in America. I have become accustomed to being the only professional of color in the room, or one of a select few.

As a profession, we are falling short in the area of diversity. Unfortunately, this cycle is likely to repeat itself until academic institutions become committed to ending discrimination at the acceptance level.

I am a graduate of Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine (TUCVM), which is the only veterinary medical professional program located on the campus of a historically black college or university (HBCU) in the United States. TUCVM has educated more than 70 percent of the nation’s African-American veterinarians, and is recognized as the most diverse of all 30 schools or colleges of veterinary medicine in the U.S. That in itself speaks volumes.

Many might assume these sorts of obstacles are diminished or eliminated upon completion of advanced veterinary training and entry into the medical field. Unfortunately, that assumption is not correct.

As a minority, I have had to learn how to navigate the intertwined barriers of race and gender. Within my leadership role, I often have to code-switch, which involves embracing the dominant culture or vernacular among certain groups (like co-workers, for example) and switching to a more authentic self around friends and family in order to avoid being labeled with oppressive stereotypes. These stereotypes – being seen as loud, angry, and aggressive, for example – are traditionally applied to Black people, but more specifically women of color.

The experience of code-switching is not unique to me, but something that of many other minority colleagues deal with, not only within veterinary medicine and STEM, but across all career paths. Unfortunately, these stereotypes often result in minorities feeling the need to over-perform in the workplace, creating a mental strain from trying to live up to a professional identity defined by mainstream culture rather than having our professional environments support diversity.

All of these stressors bring me to a much larger area of concern within the veterinary profession – mental wellness.

In recent years there has been increased focus on the mental health of veterinary students and veterinarians due to the disproportionate rate of suicide among this population. Compassion fatigue, burnout, and stressful workloads all take their toll, as they do in many medical fields. When you add these chronic forms of stress to the additional challenges that minorities face in any workplace, it’s easy to understand how one can spiral into a precarious mental state.

As a society, as a government, as corporations and organizations, and as individuals, we have an obligation to address deeply-rooted problems of racism and bias in our academic institutions and places of employment. Authentic conversations regarding racism and diversity initiatives – followed by real action and implementation – are a step in the right direction for the wellbeing and betterment of all of our STEM fields.

Once we are committed to doing better, we will do better.

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As we prepare for more new arrivals this fall, we continue to make progress toward our sanctuary expansion to make room for nearly 200 chimpanzees who still remain in research facilities waiting to come to Chimp Haven.

In August, we reached an exciting milestone in our expansion journey with the completion of the first of two 15,000 square foot corrals. Get a first look at the finished corral below!

can’t wait to see chimpanzees exploring the new corrals, climbing the structures, and lounging in their hammocks.

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Earlier this year we shared that the chimps would be coming to a TV near you before the year was up. Now we officially have a release date for Meet the Chimps, the upcoming NatGeo-produced series featuring the current residents of Chimp Haven, which will air on Disney+:

Save the date and the pant-hoots for October 16!

We could not be more excited to share all of the behind-the-scenes chimp shenanigans with Disney+ viewers in this fun and inspiring six-part series, narrated by Emmy Award-winning actress Jane Lynch. Below is a description of what you can expect:

“Meet the Chimps” takes viewers into the secret life of one of the largest and most unique wildlife sanctuaries in the world – Chimp Haven—a 200-acre refuge tucked deep in the forested heart of Louisiana, which is home to more than 300 chimpanzees. Narrated by Emmy Award-winning actress Jane Lynch, this six-part series, from National Geographic, tracks the ups and downs of this extraordinary group of chimps that are given a second chance at life by a staff whose dedication, compassion and commitment knows no bounds. Through a seamless blend of natural history and observational-documentary filmmaking, “Meet the Chimps” puts the chimps – the heart and soul of the series – at front and center. A real-life drama with a full emotional range, the series gives unparalleled access to everything happening at Chimp Haven, including food squabbles, alliances, romances, ‘bromances’, tears, tantrums, high jinxes and heartbreaks.

Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for more about the series and ways that you can connect with the sanctuary around the launch.

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Despite the obstacles and changes 2020 has presented, we are proud and grateful to have welcomed 29 new chimp retirees to sanctuary, with even more on the way in the months to come. Alfredo, Lucy, Wanda, Katie, and Shay were our very first new arrivals of the year, and as I’m writing this, they’re happily enjoying their new life at sanctuary in a family group of 13 chimps. We’ve loved showing them and all of our newbies a joyful first holiday season at the sanctuary thanks to your support.

Next year, in addition to welcoming more chimps from research facilities, Chimp Haven will partner with our friends at the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) in their effort to rehome 32 chimpanzees at the Wildlife Waystation, an animal sanctuary in Los Angeles that closed in 2019. NAPSA is working in partnership with accredited sanctuaries – including Chimp Haven – to find these chimps permanent homes and has launched a fundraising campaign to support the transport and care of these sweet chimps.

Pending funding and approvals, Chimp Haven hopes to welcome 11 of the Wildlife Waystation chimps to the sanctuary, including what would be the sanctuary’s first set of twins! If you’d like to learn more about how to support the relocation of the Wildlife Waystation chimps to Chimp Haven you can read more about the effort here.

With more new friends on the way, it was also a year of exciting firsts for several of our existing chimp families as they explored the first newly-completed living spaces as part of our Welcome Them Home sanctuary expansion. This fall marked the completion of two brand new multi-acre forested habitats, which Pierre and Slim’s family groups wasted no time exploring! If you haven’t yet watched their first moments in the forest, you don’t want to miss it:

• Video: First time in a forested habitat!
• Video: Bonus footage – Slim’s Group
• Video: Bonus footage – Pierre’s Group

As we celebrate the progress we’ve made toward our sanctuary expansion, we continue to work with urgency to finish out the campaign in order to bring the many chimps still waiting in research facilities home as quickly as possible. We’re in the final, critical stretch of completing the expansion that will ensure there is room at Chimp Haven for every chimp eligible to come here. We must raise $1.4 million to close out our campaign as quickly as possible to ensure they don’t have to wait a moment longer than absolutely necessary. Thankfully, a generous partner has stepped in with a $1 million matching gift, which will mean any donation made to the Welcome Them Home campaign will go twice as far to helping us cross this historic finish line.

As our chimp family continues to grow, so does our commitment to giving them the very best life possible at sanctuary. With our expanded facilities and new chimp living spaces, we’ll also be expanding our staff and support resources to care for our growing colony.

The coming months will be an exciting and critical time for the sanctuary’s growth. This time next year, we could be on the verge of welcoming home some of the last remaining research chimps eligible for sanctuary retirement home to Chimp Haven – what an incredible moment that will be!

All of us at Chimp Haven remain so grateful for your support and are proud to work alongside you to give these chimps the peaceful retirement they deserve. With your continued friendship and partnership, we know we’ll make it happen.

Despite the challenges we’ve all faced, it’s been a remarkable year at Chimp Haven, and I am truly proud to work alongside our dedicated staff, Board of Directors, and supporters to give our chimps the retirement they deserve. All of us at Chimp Haven hope you and your loved ones have a happy holiday season and New Year.

The post Message from the President: Thank you for your support this year appeared first on Chimp Haven.

Time and time again our care team has proven just how dedicated they are to keeping the chimps healthy and safe – but this week they truly outdid themselves. Our team has maintained round-the-clock presence at the sanctuary to ensure the chimps are warm and care for.

From delivering meals to the chimps’ bedrooms, to completing day-and-night checks to ensure the bedrooms maintained warmth, ensuring generators and heaters are running, and distributing medications, their efforts this week have truly been exceptional. When the sanctuary lost running water access on Wednesday, the team immediately shifted to hand-watering the chimps to ensure they stay hydrated.

For most of last week, the chimps remained indoors for their safety – as you might imagine, most of them would prefer not to go outside when the temperatures drop. They are doing well thanks to the efforts of our wonderful care team. Like us, we think they’re ready for spring! This weekend, a fresh crew arrived and, as temperatures slowly begin to rise, they began the effort of getting the sanctuary tidied up and back to normal.

As the sun began to peek through, the chimps also got some outdoor time to soak it up and discover the snow — something they were very excited about! It’s been a long, challenging week, but we’re so grateful to our staff and for wonderful supporters like you who always help us do what’s best for the chimps.

Thank you for supporting Chimp Haven – we truly couldn’t do this work without you!

Quilla enjoys some outdoor time as temperatures slowly begin to warm

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